Raining on his parade - again!

Sunday 3^rd July

We headed off from our B&B near Colmar after a leisurely breakfast and chat with a Danish couple who were also staying there. It was interesting to listen to them and hear a bit about politics and life in Denmark. They have extremely high taxes but all health care and education is free. They have issues with refugees also who are provided with accommodation and welfare payment. Seems like it doesn’t matter which country you are in, they all have similar problems and it is just the way they are handled.

For the early part of the day we continued to follow the Alsace wine trail. We stopped at a winery along the way for a tasting and bought a few bottles for our upcoming stay in an apartment and a gite. The lady at the winery was very helpful and worked really hard to find something that I would like. We had been worried about doing wine tastings but the two that we did worked out really well. We are on the lookout for the next wine growing area. The wine trail ended in the town of Thann and it was about lunchtime. We pulled over to work out a plan for lunch and continuing the journey and as luck would have it we were right opposite a restaurant where they had a good price menu.

Just another castle we passed along the way.

We were headed for a ski lodge near the town of Pontarlier for a couple of nights. And why were we going there? There was a hill climb close by. I had picked that I wanted to go to the town of Pontarlier – though once we got there I am not sure what the real attractions were.

Pontarlier

The ski lodge was interesting though. We were 10k out of town up into the hills, on a good road, and we were greeted at the lodge with cows wearing cowbells. We were within spitting distance of the Swiss border; in fact we were so close that Telstra thought we were in Switzerland. It was lovely to wake to the sounds of the bells at around 7.30 in the morning when the cows came back to graze.

Friday was a magic day, nice and warm, but we woke on Saturday to rain. This was the 3^rd car event Rob was going to and the 3^rd time the weather was iffy. Think it was trying to tell him something.

This was an interesting day. We travelled to a little village called Vuillafans for the hillclimb. The village is tiny, along a river, a narrow main road going through the centre of town (but wide enough to run a bus service through) and has a bar, a pizza place, a bakery and of course an old church. Well – there were motor homes, tents, gazebos, hill climb cars, service vehicles and every other vehicle you can imagine just propped where there looked like there was enough room. It was quite amazing really to see a town totally taken over by a motor sport event. As for the hillclimb - we had a drive up the road and back down. It was about 5k and multiple hairpins and climbed about 300m. Unfortunately for spectating your only choice was to park at the bottom and walk in and up. Rob enjoyed his day there in spite of the showers of rain, and managed to find plenty of people to talk to. I filled my day with knitting and reading and a coffee at the bar.

This was the camping ground and it was chockers. It was hard to get photos that showed the takeover in the rest of the town.Parking rules were out the window and we just parked along the main road - almost off the road - like everyone else. As long as there was room for the bus to pass it was OK.

We were there the whole day and arrived back in Pontarlier in time for dinner before heading back to the hotel.

Today we moved further south through the Jura mountains and following closely along the Swiss border. It has been a beautiful day and the scenery along the way was superb. The air is so clear and the contrast of the green with the blue sky was just magic. Along the drive we passed quite a few lakes which were so still. We stopped along the way for breakfast and lunch and to have a look at the lakes and a waterfall. We also stopped and gave the car a wash – desperately needed.

The rocky gorges along the road.

Tonight we are staying in the town of Saint-Claude. This town is built in the gorges at the merging of two rivers. The original dating of the town goes back to 647. When you stand on one of the bridges and look out to the town, it goes down a long way before the river and to either side of where we were standing the cliffs/mountains go up a long way too. It would have been very rugged country way back when, thankfully the roads are all good now. I can imagine it would be beautiful in winter covered in snow though not sure that I would want to be here then.

 

Some of the old town walls in Saint-Claude.

A few shots of the highs and lows of Saint-Claude.